


A Game of Luck

by glorious_spoon



Category: Titanic (1997)
Genre: AU, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-23
Updated: 2013-03-23
Packaged: 2017-12-06 05:07:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/731769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glorious_spoon/pseuds/glorious_spoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All life is a game of luck.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Game of Luck

Fabrizio hauls off and punches him when the big Swede turns out to have a royal flush, and even though Jack complains that a full house is a perfectly respectable hand, he can't entirely blame him. 

He has just enough left in his pocket to pay off their bar tab and buy a bottle of cheap wine, which they share underneath the bridge with rain dripping down the backs of their coats. Fabrizio spends the whole night muttering truly blasphemous curses in Italian and shooting him venomous looks from under his brows. Jack smokes three cigarettes and falls asleep with one foot out in the rain. He isn't worried; Jack Dawson tries not to worry about tomorrow until it shows up. 

Optimism is a long-standing habit of his. Things will work themselves out. They usually do.

***

Two days later, one of Jack's semi-respectable drinking mates gets a line on a tramp steamer that's looking for hands, and Fabrizio more or less forgives him when he cajoles, bullies, and charms the man into hiring both of them on. It's backbreaking work, dawn to dusk; nothing he hasn't done before, but when he flops onto his cot on the first night with his hands so stained with coal dust that he's leaving dark fingerprints on everything he touches, he thinks wistfully of those two third-class tickets, and a comfortable bunk to fall into without working himself to the bone first.

Fabrizio has managed to win a few dozen cigarettes and a bottle of decent whiskey from the Irishman who's sharing their bunk, though, and by the second night he's settled into the routine, even manages to find an old, familiar satisfaction in the ache of good honest work.

The steamer's route takes them down through the gulf, up the coast to the New York harbor. It's nearly May by the time they make it into port, close to dusk; Jack stands on the dock as they unload, looking out across Manhattan's towering skyline. The city seems to be all noise and clatter, the chatter of a dozen different languages washing over him as he stands still and breathes deeply, letting the sense of _home_ settle into his body, a warm, familiar comfort.

He's not aware that he's smiling until he looks up at the sound of Fabrizio's steps to find the latter staring up at Lady Liberty, grinning unabashedly. "I tell you, Jack. I come to America, be a millionaire."

"Sure, yeah," Jack says, slinging a companionable arm over his shoulder. "Already halfway there. Come on. Gotta be a cheap boarding house around here somewhere."

The place they find that night is big and loud and dirty, but no worse than the steamer and the food is a damn sight better. Jack licks grease from his fingers and watches Fabrizio try to make up to a pretty girl who doesn't seem to speak a lick of English or Italian, utterly content with the world.

He's turning to signal a girl for another round of drinks when he hears one grizzled sailor remark to another over a towering mug of stout: "--heard there's to be a proper inquiry, with the government and all."

"Should damn well hope so. What a bloody mess that was."

"Tempting fate, it was," says the first man, nodding wisely. "God hisself couldn't sink that ship, eh? Shouldn't ought to have said that, no sir. Tempting fate."

There's a strange chill settling into the surface of Jack's skin, like an icy breeze just blew through the room without anybody but him noticing. He leans in closer to the two old men. "Hey, I'm sorry, I was just overhearing--what happened? What ship sank?"

The old sailor blinks at him with bleary surprise. "What ship sank? Where you been, sonny?"

"Just got in off a steamer, haven't heard much in the way of news. What happened?"

"Titanic," the man says, and nods again. "Hit a damn iceberg, what was it, Hal--two weeks?"

"Two weeks, 'sright," agrees Hal amiably.

"Two weeks past. They're sayin' was more than half the passengers lost. Big inquiry. Damn shame, if you ask me."

"Jesus," Jack whispers, and it sounds like a prayer to his own ears. 

He sits back on the bench as the two men go back to their conversation, sits there and stares at his half-full mug of beer; he can't imagine trying to drink with the cold fist that seems to have wrapped itself around his insides.

To his right, Fabrizio is laughing obliviously and Jack thinks of crumpled tickets on a barroom table in Southampton, about the mountainous silhouette of the ship through the windows, so big that it blocked out the sky.

He's quiet and unsettled the rest of the night. After lights-out he lies awake smoking, staring up at the wooden ceiling beams and thinking, for the first time in years, of that long ago morning on Lake Wissota. Of the slip of water under the ice; of how cold it was. It's warm inside, humid with the heat of too many people packed in too small a space, but there's a chill down to his bones that he can't quite shove aside.

By morning, he's more or less thrown off the strange mood. He drinks two cups of coffee and steals half of Fabrizio's breakfast, and he's whistling into the salt-smelling breeze as he heads out to look for some kind of work to tide him over for the next few weeks. He'll stay in New York for a while, he thinks. He's been on the move for months now, and the city is bursting full of new sights, new sounds, new subjects for his drawings. Already his fingers are itching to capture the towering buildings and the gaudy mess of humanity in charcoal and paper; this time, maybe, he'll get his big break.

If he feels unsettled and cold when he passes by the docks to see those tall steamers coming in, that's nobody's business but his own.

***

In June, he takes up with a dance-hall girl named Lola. She's a pretty, cheerful thing with rosy cheeks and a mop of blonde curls; it's not true love, for either of them, but she's a sweetheart and Jack's happy to enjoy it while it lasts. He's been sharing a loft with Fabrizio while the latter pursues some hopeless romance with the daughter of the Russian baker two doors down, and it's good to have an excuse to leave when Fabrizio starts trying his hand at poetry composition.

He's flipping through the paper outside the dressing room, killing time while she gets out of her face-paint and frothy dress, when his attention is caught by a piece on the society page, of all things. It's a wedding announcement, with a photo. Jack scans the first few lines of text, sees the word 'Titanic' and realizes that's what jumped out at him. He grimaces. Seems like that damn ship is everywhere he looks, still. Like a death omen, or something. His own personal Flying Dutchman.

"I read about that," Lola says from behind him, leaning over his shoulder to peer at the paper in his hands. She smells like stage makeup and cheap perfume. "Romantic, ain't it? Like something out of a storybook."

Jack shrugs, reads the first few lines again: _Caledon Hockley weds Boston heiress Rose Dewitt-Bukater. Mr. and Mrs. Hockley, who survived the Titanic disaster on their crossing over from Britain, plan to reside--_

"Sure," he says. "If you're into that."

She slaps him playfully. "You don't have a romantic bone in your body."

Jack grins, kisses her. "'Course I do. Just for you, beautiful."

When she goes back in to get her purse, though, he finds himself looking at the photograph again. The man is your average toff, slicked back hair, nice suit and a sneer; the woman, though, is another story. She stands apart from her husband, her posture perfect, as coldly beautiful as an ice statue. She isn't smiling; her cool gaze is direct, and Jack feels a sudden strange twist of something like recognition.

Then Lola's skipping back down the steps toward him, whistling a jaunty tune under her breath. Jack smiles and stands to meet her, leaving the paper behind.

***

It's December when Fabrizio finally talks Irina Sabitov into marrying him. He writes and crumples up at least three drafts of the letter that he's sending to his mother; Jack leans against the doorframe and laughs at him, tells him there's nothing he can write that won't send her into a temper about missing her _bambino's_ wedding.

"Lucky for you, she's on the other side of the ocean," he remarks, and Fabrizio throws a wadded up ball of paper at him.

He stands up with Fabrizio at the wedding, helps him move into the rooms over the baker's shop a week later. When he goes home that night, the empty loft seems too big, and he finds himself down by the docks with no clear idea of how he got there, sitting on the cold planks and staring up at the moon that's gilding the ocean with silver.

***

In January, Lola's mother back in Sioux Falls gets sick, and she goes back home to look after her. Jack offers to go along, but he isn't really surprised when she says no.

He sees her off to the train station, kisses her cheek and tells her to give her mother his best. He knows that it's the last time he'll ever see her.

***

Irina is pregnant, happy and glowing with it when Jack swings by their place to tell them he's heading out. Fabrizio tries to talk him out of it, without success. New York is cold and gray this time of year; his sketchpad is full and the traveling itch has been starting up beneath his skin again. He's thinking someplace warm, this time. Mexico, maybe. He's never been to Mexico.

Fabrizio calls him _idiota_ and tells him that he better come back and visit. Irina kisses his cheek and hands him a paper sack of freshly baked rolls. He can feel the curve of her growing belly against his when she hugs him and wonders, not for the first time, at his own restlessness. It's like his feet have never quite found a home that suits them.

The next day, he jumps a train to Alabama. His sketchpad is full of clean paper and he smiles as the world speeds past him in a puff of coal smoke and a clatter of rails.

He settles his head back against the side of the car and hums, absently, a jaunty cheerful tune that he only remembers half the words to.

_Come Josephine in my flying machine, going up she goes, up she goes..._


End file.
